


Devils in the Woods

by Zakk



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, American South, Demons, Hunter AU, M/M, Minor Violence, Rating May Change, Work In Progress, demon!Dirk Strider - Freeform, hunter!Jake English, supernatural beings get angry when you mess with them so it was kinda a given, tiny chapters because i write at a snail's pace :V
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-01-27 13:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12583336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zakk/pseuds/Zakk
Summary: Jake English, a young hunter touring the American countryside, gets far more than he has bargained for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy halloweiner

Your name is Jake English, you are a hunter, and you have fucked up. Royally.  
After passing through a bar earlier that night looking for jobs (and maybe partaking a bit to soothe your nerves), you had been handed a flyer. A bounty, more accurately, for a local shapeshifter. They lived in the nearby woods and had made a name for themselves by flitting through the trees late at night and giving everyone in this rural roadside town in the southern American countryside the scare of their life.

You drove in the direction of the woods in question about an hour later. Rolling slowly over dirt roads in your ancient pickup, you scan the treeline for movement, but see nothing but foliage and upturned logs. Once, you think you see a figure in the brush and shine your flashlight into the darkness, but the only thing that scurries out is a very angry looking raccoon. You consider pursuing it, but the local who gave you the bounty had specified your target to have eyes that glowed like ‘car de-icer fresh out the bottle’. You didn't have the slightest damn clue what car de-icer looked like, but you could take his word for it when he said they were bright. This creature's eyes are flat black and only shine back at you when your flashlight catches them. They do hold an otherworldly kind of anger, though. To be fair, it seemed all the wildlife in this place was perpetually in a state of barely contained rage. The furious little animal chitters and runs off.

Eventually, after driving past what must be miles of the forest's perimeter, you hit a clearing. Sighing and cutting the engine, you pull the keys from the ignition and sit for a moment. You'd seen nothing but dead wood, ancient trees and hostile wildlife the whole drive. Fuck, maybe whoever had drafted up this bounty had just seen one of those dastardly little grey things with the huge mouths and weird tails. Wouldn't be the first time that your 'monster' had just been a local animal screwing around in the night. What were those things called again? Poss...poh-sam...

Something sprints in the woods closeby, swift, shadowy, humanoid. That wasn't a possum.  
You leap from the truck, bowie knife strapped to your leg and flashlight at the ready. Your pistol sits comfortable and heavy in its holster at your side. Whatever it was that had run past you, it either hadn't seen you, or had no intention of giving you the time of day (night, rather). It continues running straight through the clearing before diving into the woods on the other side. Very well, then. Two can play at this game.

You walk briskly in the direction that the shadow was heading. Picking up a set of vaguely shoe-shaped tracks in the dirt and grass, you follow their path through the clearing and a few hundred feet into the woods before losing the trail in the leaf litter. Damn. You slow your pace and continue slowly forward, hand resting on your holster. The forest is quiet save for the wind and gentle rustle of leaves. The moon glints off of a river that runs lazily to your right.  
After walking in silence for so long you lose track of time, you begin to lose hope in finding anything at all in these pitch black woods. You yawn and consider turning back. Lost in thought, you don't notice until it's too late when your foot catches something on the ground and snaps you upwards.

The rope rubs uncomfortably into your ankle as you hang upside down from a low branch. You fume quietly for a moment before pulling your knife from the strap around your thigh. You sneer as you quickly saw the blade through the offending item. It frays and finally comes loose, dropping you about half a foot onto the ground with an 'oomph'. You lay flat on your back for a moment and stare at the trees reaching into the starry sky. It was on.  
You leap to your feet with a flourish and point your knife at your invisible foe. After a moment of standing there, legs spread in a fighting pose...you realize you probably look like an idiot, brandishing your knife at nothing in an empty forest. You slap your other hand to your face and drop your blade to your side. You're really goddamn tired. It was probably just a hunter's trap set for one of the many small, angry animals that lived here.

A rustling of leaves startles you from your miniature pity party. Flashes of fur, or maybe feathers, swim in the corner of your eye. Whatever it is, it stops dead in its tracks when it sees you. You're greeted by a humanoid figure, about a head shorter than yourself. Their blond hair and light skin stands out fairly strikingly against the dark feathers that sprout from their forearms, and the black horns that rise and then curl from their head. The (male? the face that stares back at you is angled and a bit gaunt) figure goes still, folding their scaly, taloned hands into fists. They were going to book it. You were ready.

As you predicted, their feet slip for a moment against the ground as they break into a run. You can't get the image of their eyes out of your head, their wide-eyed stare burning into you.  
Red. Bright, searingly red. You've never seen quite a color in a set of eyes before, supernatural or not.

You give chase, feet pounding against the ground with your steps. You're quite a swift runner, but the 'shifter has a home-turf advantage, and you nearly go ass over tea kettle more than once over the raised tree roots and debris in your way. He gracefully leaps and ducks through the brush, almost losing you more than once. Finally, though, you receive a boon in the form of a weakened tree; when he jumps and tries to rebound off of its trunk to give himself a boost in distance, it snaps and breaks under the force. He sinks like a stone, his legs stretching out wide. He lands on his side and lifts himself into a sitting position immediately, but the fall knocked the wind out of him and it takes him a moment to recover. You use the precious extra seconds to catch up and pull your pistol from its holster, aiming it steadily forward. You relegate the other hand to flashlight duty. A little awkward, but you’re more than capable of juggling them both.

You've tried to negotiate with your more humanoid targets before. You rarely got a word in edgewise before they'd punch you, claw at you, bite you or just downright try to kill you. The times you had actually managed to talk to them were worse. It was near impossible to reach a compromise with the evil sort, and for the ones that weren’t as coldhearted, once people found out you, say, hadn't slain the vampire just trying to live their life in the woods near a village, they usually took things into their own hands (torches and stakes, specifically). Either way, things ended badly. It was best to head this sort of thing off at the pass.

Still, you hesitate for a moment. Their only crime, so far, had been existing. You edge closer, gun still drawn. He looks between you, the gun, and the stretch of woods behind him, panicked and breathless. He looks so scared, you…consider walking away from this. Just going back to your truck, and feeding that guy some bullshit story about killing whatever the hell was in the woods and not being able to bring back a body because it dissolved the moment that the damn thing died. Wouldn’t be the first time that had happened to you. _That_ had been fun to explain.  
The shapeshifter makes your decision for you. When you finally get close enough to inspect their outstretched leg, expecting an injury, they deck you in the stomach. Doubling over, you drop your pistol and wrap the other arm around your middle, still clutching the flashlight. The little shit.

He’s fast, but you’re faster, and when he tries to sprint past you, your now free hand grabs his now dusty shirt and stops him. He tries to wrench himself from your grasp but you hold fast. He blindly throws punches as you try to reach your gun, but you can’t hang onto him and get your pistol from the ground at the same time. One of his hits manages to connect with your jaw and you falter only for a moment before dropping the flashlight and retaliating with a blow of your own. You struggle with him for a moment before grabbing your knife from its strap on your thigh and slashing wildly. It tears into the arm that he’s currently using to punch your face like it’s going out of style. He hisses through his teeth and manages to slip free from your grasp. He calls out into the darkness, loosing an awful and screeching cry, and goes running like a bat out of hell into the dark. You go chasing afterwards. And that’s where you make your biggest mistake all evening.

He quickly darts out of view and gets swallowed up in the night. Without your flashlight, you can hardly make out anything at all, so this turn of events doesn’t surprise you. What does surprise you is after a few moments of running blindly in the dark, you see him again. A flash of blond hair and feathers, curled into the arms of a shadowy blob. You stop so quickly that you skid through the dirt. Oh. Oh no.

The ‘shadowy blob’ is another humanoid figure. And another. And another, and another. The thing the locals have been seeing wasn’t a shapeshifter at all.  
All four of the demons glare at you, their eyes practically burning holes in your skull. Now you’ve done it.  
You put out your hands, backing up slowly. One of the demons, a tallish figure with two slightly inward curving horns and eyes that glitter purple against the dark reaches for the one you’ve been chasing, freeing up the arms of the demon he’s currently resting on. He slumps against them, and they lift his arm to inspect it. Their eyes widen at the wound, and then narrow at you. This is probably your cue to run. But you don’t. You’re so mesmerized by the tallest one, the one that your part-victim part-assailant had run to. They’ve got these amber orange eyes that pierce into your very soul, and what little you can make out of their face is contorted in the most furious expression you’ve ever seen. His head lowers but stays focused on you, swept back horns catching moonlight. They’re curled back in an arch, ridged and just as jet black as the horns of the others, framed nicely by his platinum blond hair. Blond; all four of them are blond. A family? Oh god. You’ve just stirred up a whole fucking family of demons. You’re so fucking dead.

His lips curl back in a snarl. It’s then, when light glints off of his teeth, when you recognize the curve and point of very, very sharp fangs, that you remember to run. You turn tail and sprint away, not needing to look over your shoulder to know that you’re being pursued. You run blindly, adrenaline pumping hard enough for you to ignore the soreness in your muscles and the burn of your lungs. The sound of yelling and footsteps behind you spurs you on.

You run for what feels like an eternity. Long enough that you should have cleared this forest entirely and ended up on the other side. But you haven't. You listen hard for any noise other than your hurried breaths and boots hitting the ground, and when you hear nothing you finally look behind you. Nothing but empty woods. 

You slow to a jog and then stop running entirely, doubling over to catch your breath. You pant and cough, throat dry and muscles burning. Now what? You feel around your pockets for your phone, and touch nothing but the expanse of your leg. Your pistol was still laying somewhere on the forest floor, your flashlight as well. You feel for your knife, and that too is gone. You must have dropped it while you were running. You shake your head and try to think. There had to be a way out of this.

  
You’re taken completely by surprise when something smashes into your side. You’re knocked to the ground, and whatever had hit you has you pinned flat against the ground. Orange filters into your vision. Ah.

They growl at you, otherworldly and deep. A clawed hand digs into the flesh of your arm.

“Easy, easy.” you soothe, trying to deflect the demon’s anger. “We can talk this out. Nobody has to get hurt. Okay?”  
The demon does not seem interested in talking it out. He snarls at you, growling only growing louder. He raises a hand high, clawed fingers curled. You put your hand over your face, and pray.

A shout rings across the forest. The demon above you freezes and snaps his head in the direction of the sound. It’s one of the others, a demon with one horn that stretched up and another that curled over. They utter something in a language you can’t place, something between the hard guttural stops of German and the low rumble of an angry cat. The demon pinning you growls back. They trade snarls for a bit. Oh, great, now you were stuck in the middle of a demon family quarrel. Good job. You’d try to get free, but then both of them would be on you in a hot minute. You lay there uselessly until they’re done.

Eventually, they seem to reach a consensus. The orange eyed one gets to his feet, lifting you with him. His hold on your arm doesn’t loosen even a bit. They both walk deeper into the woods, with you trudging along at their side. You get the distinct feeling that this was going to be a long night.


	2. Chapter 2

They drag you along for a good twenty minutes before you all arrive at a dilapidated two-story cabin. Huh. Had that always been there? The boarded up windows and overgrowth surrounding it don’t exactly lend an air of ‘home’. In fact, it reminds you more of the sort of isolated cabin you see in horror movies. You swallow thickly as they pull you inside.

  
It’s…cozy. You wouldn’t know it from the outside, but it actually does look like a home. It’s more than a little cluttered, but not at all dirty. The floor is a dark hardwood, the walls (what you can see of them, anyway) painted a soft creme white. The furniture is ancient in style, the sort of thing you’d see in a little old grandma’s home, but the surfaces are well polished and there isn’t a fiber out of place. The walls are coated from ceiling to baseboard with paintings, posters and photos. There’s a worn looking maroon couch, a tweed recliner, a couple of end tables with weird, eighties looking lamps on them…

  
Someone clears their throat. Your attention snaps to the person sitting in a chair at the table near the entryway. It’s the red eyed demon from before, the one you laid into with your knife. He’s sitting at a wooden kitchen table with the purple eyed demon seated to his right. He waves to the chair across from him. The demon holding you releases you from their grasp, and you sheepishly take a seat at the table. Just four chairs, one for each; they must not get many visitors. He clears his throat again and sits forward before speaking.

  
“So…what the living fuck was that all about?” he asks, his voice flat, almost uninterested.

“ _Dave_.” hisses the other demon sitting at the table. The corner of Dave’s mouth turns upwards almost imperceptibly. Another demon sinks into the chair beside you, laying their hands on the table. Her pink eyes shimmer at you mischievously. You laugh nervously and run your hands over your pants. You… don’t have a good explanation. You’ve been telling yourself to shoot first and ask questions later for so long, you hadn’t given it much thought when the demon (Dave, you’re assuming his name is) popped out of the woods. To be fair, he _had_ gut punched you. That was something that happened. 

Even if you did have something to say for yourself, your current company doesn’t exactly seem…understanding. Dave rubs gently at the bandaging on his arm. Looks like you gave him quite a gouging; the gauze and tape is wrapped tightly from wrist to elbow. Whoops.

  
The demon sitting next to next to Dave fixes him with a look between a glare and the sort of disappointed glower that you’d get from an angry parent. Wait, did all of them have black lips? Nope, just that one. In the light, you get a better look at their features.

  
Blond, all of them, with black horns, black feathers, and black scales on their hands that tapered off at their forearms. You haven’t seen anything like them before. Well, that was sort of a given, actually; most demons preferred life on their native planes of existence. The ones that resided elsewhere were powerful. Powerful enough to break the barriers between realms, and powerful enough to overcome the usually fatal deprivation of the magic that ran freely there. You swallow thickly at the thought.

  
Dave’s horns tilt with his head as he looks right back at the other demon. They’re sort of short, curling once and spreading outwards on either side. The demon next to him stares right back. She taps her purple tipped talons against the table. Footsteps click behind you as the demon still on his feet comes to stand at your side, crossing his arms. You can’t see his face, but you know he isn’t happy. You tug at your collar.

  
“Well, I, um… See, it’s sort of…” you stutter. You’re floundering, you know it, but words simply won’t come. You keep grasping for something to say, something that they’ll want to hear, but you’re too fucking nervous to think. You can’t stop envisioning them tearing your throat out, or smashing your skull against the hardwood. Four against one, with you completely unarmed. You don’t stand a snowball’s chance in the pits of Hell. Or a human’s chance in a house of devils. You consider bolting for the door.

“What Dave is _trying_ to say, is that we would like to hear from you, in your words, what occurred tonight. Is that something you can do for me…”

“Jake.”

“Right, Jake. Obviously, one does not simply go running into the woods, guns drawn and armed to the teeth for no good reason. What is it that you were expecting to find tonight? Were you, perhaps, out hunting? You are awake that elk season in this county doesn’t start for another week?” Her eyes glint at you, and there’s a sort of barely restrained smugness in her tone. You’re dead. You’re _incredibly_ dead.

“Wait, um—”

“Now, I won’t jump to conclusions here. But it’s quite late to be doing any hunting, is it not? Taking nocturnal species with firearms is illegal, in this particular jurisdiction.”

“So, actually—“

“But what I think,” she cuts you off, placing her hands flat on the table.

“What I think, is that you came out here looking for something.” she states, steepling her fingers. The other demon at the table snickers, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket. 

“Didja find it?” she asks, holding out the rumpled page. The bounty. Oh god. You quickly slide your hand into your pocket and find it empty. She took it. When in the blue blazes did she do that?

“Sounds to me like you came out looking for trouble.” comes a voice from behind. Flat and deep. A timbre that is actually… quite nice to listen to, and you sort of wish you were hearing it from him under better circumstances.

“You definitely found that.” he intonates, taking the bounty from his fellow demon's hands and walking off. Yeah, that one _really_ didn’t like you. 

“Rose, Rose.” the pink eyed demon says, accosting the other at the table. Alright, that one was Rose, then.

“Yes, Roxy dearest?” Rose responds, splaying her hand across her chest. 

“You don’t think this guy’s a _hunter_?” her voice is faux-incredulous, and the emphasis on the word tells all. You weren't out here for local wildlife, and they knew it. 

“It is most certainly a possibility.” Rose responds. Dave’s tiny smirk grows.  
“Oh, man. Are they out here to get that nasty shapeshifter?” Dave asks, definitely finding humor in the situation. You’re glad that at least one of you is enjoying this. Roxy and Rose cackle conspiratorially. 

“Dude’s been all up in our business. Shapeshifting and all that shit. What a bastard.” Dave states, leaning forward on the table. 

“Sorta dude that like, steals leftovers even after you’ve told him not to. You _tell_ that dude, ‘don’t steal my last fucking slice of pizza’, but he does it anyway, because he’s that kind of asshole. Except with shapeshifting. And not being real. He’s super fuckin’ good at not being real.” he finishes, punctuating the end of his sentence with an upward tilt of his lip. Ah. Teeth. Very sharp, very inhuman teeth. That wasn’t good.

“I can explain—“ you start. You really, seriously can’t. But your ability to bullshit has never let you down before.

“Can you  _really?_ ” asks the demon standing behind you. Nope, but he certainly doesn’t need to know that. Give it just a second, you’ll figure something out.

“Now, now, Dirk. Is that any way to treat a guest?” admonishes Rose. Dirk snorts humorlessly and walks deeper into the cabin. Something swings up from behind him— shiny, black, wider at the end. A tail. It swishes irritably as he walks. You find yourself staring. Belatedly, you realize that the other three at the table have been talking, and you haven’t caught a word of it. You drop back into the conversation around the time they begin to discuss how a hundred dollars and some booze wasn’t really worth it, as far as bounty payments went.

“Look. I was just— I was just trying to wrangle up some cash for a hotel room and maybe some eats. Is that truly so terrible?” you state, running a hand through your hair. It’s not until you’ve _said_ such a thing that you realize it’s an incredibly pinheaded thing to say, and kind of misses the point entirely. Rose and Dave exchange a look. Roxy just bounces excitedly in her chair. 

“Hang on, hang on. I didn’t mean it like that. I, uh, I was just— Look, I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”  
It’s pretty damn close to being the dumbest thing you could say in this situation. Certainly, there were worse things you could say, but that particular statement was quite high on the list. Goddamnit. You tap your fingers on your legs anxiously. Rose raises an eyebrow.

“Truly?” Rose asks.

“Yes, but— wait, I mean, I kinda, um…” you stammer. Dave’s resolve finally breaks and he bursts out laughing, banging his non-injured fist on the table.

“This dude is a fucking gem,” Dave laughs. “Can we just, like, keep him?”

“I am not a _pet_!” you squawk. 

“Uh-huh. That’s funny; it really sucks when somebody thinks you’re just some kind of animal, doesn’t it?” Dirk grumbles, now back at your side. Jesus christmas, when did he get there?

“That’s not— I never said that.”

“I vote we just toss him out into the woods and get this over with.” Dirk states, examining his nails nonchalantly. 

“Dude, no way. This is comedy fucking gold.” wheezes Dave. He’s still laughing up a storm over there. Yeah, yeah, yuk it right up. Rose stares at you pensively, before relaxing and sitting back in her chair. She growls in that weird, partially angry rodent and partially choking cat language again. You’d say that it _sounded_ like she was speaking in tongues, except that it occurs to you that is quite literally what she is doing. Roxy seems to concur with whatever she’s saying, while Dirk most certainly is not. He makes a noise like the revving of a motorcycle engine mixed with a computer’s hard drive starting up. It nearly makes you jump out of your chair. Dave most certainly notices, and starts laughing again. This is certifiably the worst day of your life.

Roxy’s tail flicks up behind her as she puts her chin in her hands and says something to Dirk. Oh, huh, her tail looks different. The angular tip wiggles and dances as she chatters excitedly. The base of the arrow tip comes back in two rounded points like a pair of cat ears, not unlike Dirk’s spadelike swisher. Wow, that took an almost euphemistic turn. Probably best to stop that line of thinking now, before you start thinking about the shapes of other things with tips. Goddamnit, why did all them have to be attractive?

  
Dave growls something, high pitched and snarky. Probably a smartass comment. This draws reactions from Rose and Dirk, and another laugh from Roxy. The conversation continues, with you completely and utterly lost. Your eyes wander over to the door. Maybe if you just…

  
You start to slide a foot quietly towards the exit. All four of them are so ensconced in their conversation that they don’t seem to notice. You lean over in your chair, and...

  
You book it for the door. Immediately, Dirk's hands fly out and grab your shirt, but his sharp talons tear right through the fabric and you slip easily out of his hold, your clothing taking the brunt of the damage. You're held up only a moment by the lock on the door, and then you're running through the woods like a bat out of the great fire and brimstone itself. Oh, god. Speaking of hell. There's a roar like a crack of thunder that splits the night and makes your ears ring. You hoof it like your ass is ablaze, not bothering to look behind you.

  
You run. Again. You seemed to be doing that a lot lately. This time, though, you have a plan. You remember the vague direction in which you think you entered the forest, and head that way. It's... really not much of a plan. But there's light starting to filter into the sky, and if you've got any chance of recognizing landmarks, then now is the time. You kinda think you've seen that log over there before. Maybe?

  
The universe finally decides to do you a favor. The river that you passed on the way in emerges into your vision. It's a longshot, but you're fairly low on better plans right now. You follow it closely with your eyes for a minute or so, and then run right into the water. It's about thirty feet wide and comes up to the hem of your khaki shorts just a few steps in. You decide crossing it is probably a bad idea, so you run along the bank just far enough into the water that you won't leave tracks, though your loud, obnoxious splashing is probably enough to give you away. Whatever. You're committed to it now.

  
Abruptly, the trees end, and the river bends away. You're back where you started that night, standing on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. You scan the area, looking for--

  
Your truck, which is parked just a few yards away. You don't think you've ever gotten into a car quite that fast before. You've locked the doors quicker than you can blink, and finding the keys still in the ignition, started it up. You hit the gas and get the absolute hell out of Dodge. Your tires kick up a plume of dust as you accelerate, your current destination 'anywhere but fucking here'. The moon has disappeared below the horizon by the time you finally hit the highway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so it begins.  
> comments, kudos and concrit are majorly appreciated!  
> <3  
> edit: hey guys! i've edited the first two chapters to make them a little bit more legible. found a couple of contradictions and awkward phrasings, put some spit-polish onto the whole thing, stuff like that. thank you immensely for the kudos! the next chapter will come as soon as i'm happy with it (which might take a bit :B)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a shorter chapter because i wanted to post s o m e t h i n g  
> happy belated thanksgiving

You drive as fast as humanly possible, for as long as humanly possible. You’re still riding an incredible adrenaline high, and can’t make your heart stop flopping about in your chest like a cat in a sack. And as such, you nearly jump out of your skin when your truck starts to sputter and slow. A quick look over the dashboard reveals that you are currently past running on fumes, and are now driving solely on the thought of the gasoline that was once in the tank, and the last whispers of a prayer. Ah.

You manage to cruise onto an exit, and roll around the corner. There’s a parking lot just a couple yards away, and you steer your great metal beast into it. Your rusted pickup finally gives out on you, not even a moment later. Lucky for you, though, you aren’t still out on the highway, and aren’t in any danger of being run down trying to push your truck out of the roadway. Not that you’ve seen more than a couple cars on your whole drive. Which is great, because you’re pretty sure you were driving fast enough to give even the most habitual of speeders pause. You dig through your glove box, and eventually lay your hands on your phone. The battery is deader than the dodo, unsurprisingly. You haven’t charged it since early yesterday.

Fuck.

You examine your surroundings. You’ve pulled into the parking lot of one of those legendary twenty-four hour breakfast places that this chunk of the country is famous for. Well, when in Rome…

You poke through your glove box again. Your wallet, removed from under a small stack of napkins, gives up very little in cash. Fuck, moths practically fly out. Criminy christ on a cracker. You grab your wallet, your phone, and its charger, depositing them in your pockets with your keys.

The windowed establishment is bright, cheery, and also feels a little like walking into a morgue. The booth that you’re seated in is a little ripped, and the scuffed table creaks under your elbows when you rest on it. You pick through your wallet mournfully. A coffee is set down in front of you, and you smile politely at the waitress. A glance at the wall clock (while your now plugged-in phone takes its own personal eternity to start up) reveals it is now five o’ clock in the morning. There are a handful of other people in the restaurant, each one more zombified than the last. The man at the next booth over, the only person in the building not currently in a state of extreme exhaustion, is having a very animated discussion with someone on his cellphone about how much his ass ached from sitting on it for six hours straight, presumably a tourist on a long drive. You hope.

You sip your coffee and stare absentmindedly out the window. Well, you could try to call someone to tow your car. _With what money_ , you ask yourself. Right. Maybe you could try to find a gas station nearby, buy a jerrycan and a gallon of gas to fill it, and walk all the way back…except that sounded like a ton of work, and you’re so tired that you’d probably pass out on the roadside. There’s nothing but flat fields for miles around, and the only building you’d seen from the parking lot was this pretty little perma-open diner, so any gas station you find is going to be something of a walk. You’ll try going through the map function on your phone in a bit. ‘Till then, though…

You watch as a handful of crumbly, brown leaves go flying in the breeze past the window. You rest your chin on your arms, and the table creaks a little at the added weight. You watch another car pull into the lot, and another car leave. The streetlamps outside flicker and turn off. To tell the god's honest truth, you're quite tired, and the caffeine isn't even taking the edge off. Your eyelids shut, your head lolls off to the side...

A noise wakes you right back up again. It's your consarned phone, now finally operational. There are a few texts and a missed call from your cousin and best pal, Jade. A quick glance at the contents of your lock screen reveals that she seems to be worried about something, but you can't get your eyes to focus long enough on the notification to glean just what. Whatever, she's always been something of a worrywart anyway. You start to doze again.

And you're awoken, just as quickly as you'd begun to nod off. This time, it's because someone has seated themselves in the other side of the booth, the creak of the old cushions beneath them announcing their presence.

“Hey, there.” he rumbles. You swallow thickly before looking up. A taller gent with pale skin and styled platinum blond hair stares back at you. He’s got full sleeve tattoos on either arm, starting just above his wrists. Black ink intermingles with purples and red, interrupted on his left arm by a splash of pink. His right wrist is decked out in orange, a drawing of a hat that wraps all the way around. It’s the only tattoo you can really make out at this current moment, his fist tucked under his chin, elbow resting on the table. The piercings on his ears catch the fluorescent lights of the diner. His eyes are a familiar orange, albeit more amber and a lot less bright.

“Sorry ’m late.” he says, just a little bit louder than necessary. He lifts his chin from its perch atop his fist.

“Don’t make a scene.” he warns under his breath. You blink and nod slowly. A waitress strolls by, catches sight of him, and smiles.

“Oh, angel! I haven't seen that sweet little face in for-ev-er. How you holdin' up?" she says sweetly, motioning a coffee pot in Dirk's direction.

"Been alright. Busy as I've ever been, though." he drawls, putting the same southern-steeped twang on his words that everyone else in this little Oklahoma town used.

"Busy, busy. Don't you go tellin' _me_ about busy. Can't even tell ya' how many people come here in the itty-bitty hours of the mornin' lately, wantin' this and that." she rambles, pulling out her order pad and flipping the page up. "But that ain't here nor there. Can I get you two somethin'?"

"'m all set, thanks." you squeak, voice breaking a bit.

"Well, don't you have the cutest accent I ever heard! You a friend of my best regular over here?"

"Sure is. He's gonna be visitin' over in our neck of the woods for a bit." Dirk replies. You notice how his eye twitches when the word 'friend' is mentioned. 

"C'mon, now." Dirk sighs, sitting up in the booth. "You're my guest. Let me buy ya' something." He's staring you down. It isn't a suggestion. You bite your lip, nodding meekly, and Dirk gives you an exaggerated grin.

"Perfect." He turns to the waitress. "The usual?"

"Mhmm, I gotcha. One for your friend, too?" Dirk's fist clenches a bit.

"Yeah." he replies, forcing the smile back onto his face. His teeth look so...normal. The waitress grins and saunters toward the kitchen.

“So, then.” he starts, pressing the napkin dispenser back against the wall.

“Ya’ gave us all a hell of a fright, runnin’ off in the middle of the night like that. Nearly gave Dave a heart attack.” he grits out.

“Yeah, I, uh…sorry, about that.” you say, trying to discretely unlock your phone. Dirk clears his throat.

“I don’t recommend that.” he mutters. You smile sheepishly and push your phone away from you, folding your hands in your lap. Dirk relaxes a bit. There’s an awkward stretch of silence where you both find a spot of the restaurant to stare at (though you think Dirk might be staring at you). You are, thankfully, interrupted by the waitress returning with two plates of food balanced on a platter in one hand, and a mug of coffee for Dirk in the other. She sets them down on the table in front of you.

“Y’all play nice, now.” she says playfully, walking off. Dirk gives a light laugh. The food looks excellent; it's some kind of waffle piled high with fruit and whipped cream. You realize, distantly, that you are _starving_ , and you would very much like to eat. But...

Dirk continues staring you down, seeming quite interested in your shoulder all of a sudden. You glance at it quickly, and, oh. You knew that your shirt had been torn in your earlier scuffle, but the dried blood crusted in the fabric comes as a surprise. You sweep your hand over the emerald fabric a few times. Dirk's face softens a bit. He slides a set of silverware laid out on the table closer to himself, and another set closer to you.

"You gonna eat?" he asks, pointing to your plate with his fork. You grab your utensils immediately and start to scarf down food with all the ferocity of a starved coyote. Dirk picks disinterestedly at a plume of whipped cream. After you’ve managed to inhale most of the food on your plate, and Dirk has drained the vast majority of the coffee in his mug, he sighs and folds his hands on the table in front of him. He glances quickly around the diner before pushing your plates out of the way and leaning in close.

“Listen here. I’m gonna make you a deal.” he says in a low tone, pulling something from his pocket. It’s the bounty again, crumpled and folded from passing so many hands.

“You’re gonna go back to whoever the hell gave you this, and you’re gonna tell them the only thing in those woods are a couple of deer and and a whole boatload of fucking nothing. Alright?” You’re tempted to agree, purely on the desire to make this encounter end. But you can’t be sure he isn’t just planning to make you lie to the gent, and then dispose of you like yesterday’s trash. You furrow your brow.

“And,” he continues, looking out the window. “I’ll pay you the bounty.”

“That’s it? No catch?”

“Oh, there’s a catch alright.” he says, lip curling upwards. “If I ever see you again, you aren’t going to be _nearly_ as lucky.” You shift uncomfortably in your seat. It occurs to you that this could be defined as ‘making a deal with the devil’. Fuck it, if you’re going along with this, then you’re going *whole hog.

“Double the bounty.”

“What?”

“I’ll only do it if you give me _double_  the bounty.” Dirk’s face goes completely impassive. You immediately realize you have made an enormous mistake. There’s a moment of tense, electric silence. Dirk breaks the quiet with a snort, banging his fist lightly on the table. He shoves the crumpled paper back in his pants pocket, and holds his hand out.

“You have a deal.” You shake his hand vigorously.


End file.
